The Lunatic Club

[Bandit]

Thanks for the advice! So I'm guessing MMU is better than FMU for no grind runs or can either work? (Sorry I'm sure you get a lot of questions, my apologies for bothering you so much.)

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

Female Robin is generally better for the main campaign, because the way the game progresses, she can easily take a class route that picks up Dark Flier for Galeforce very early on, not to mention making Lucina even more powerful and producing Chrom!Galeforce Morgan (this is less important for vanilla Lunatic, but for Lunatic+, Galeforce on a few power characters is a godsend). Either can work, though, since Robin's just a pretty broken character in general, but the easier time is had with female Robin.

If you plan to take the file to postgame, then it becomes more even, possibly tipping in male Robin's favour (this is assuming that the "no grind" restriction is lifted once you're into postgame content). This is kind of the same situation as with female Robin and the main campaign, though. That is, properly set-up gen 1s can take on any of the postgame content without a ton of difficulty, but some of the easier, more reliable configurations that incorporate gen 2 are more optimal with male Robin.

[Bandit]

I see.

My plan for Luna+ was non grind through the maingame yeah and then try and tackle some postgame stuff like Future Past and the Challenge maps, though honestly completling regular Luna+ on a no grind run will be hard enough as is. I did want to go FMU for the Luna+ run though so it's nice to know she's viable (and I'm fine with her marrying Chrom as well since I know that gives good children). Speaking of good children I know Gregor!Laurent is meant to be pretty good and a Henry!Cynthia makes a good magic user but any other combos you would recomend.

Also units who I should dump early on? I know Donnel isn't much use in no grind runs since he requires some babying which can be invested in multiple units. I learnt that the hard way last time.

Again sorry for bothering you with all these questions. I truly do appreciate the help.

[Vascela]

There is no bothering; it's one point of the thread. The only stupid questions are the ones never asked; thus, never answered. Maybe one day you'll be the one giving advice.

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

Nah, it's no bother. I like talking about this stuff.

It's possible to get through the game with just a Robin/Chrom duo, although, adding Lucina and Morgan makes things safer (this is the setup I use for my typical runs). If you wish to use a fuller deploy, I can recommend Nowi (she has to be extra careful of Counter and Luna+, though), Panne (reclassed to Wyvern Rider) and Cordelia (with a Str pair-up of some kind) from personal experience. Sumia is supposed to be a relatively solid lead too, although her best training chapters aren't until P2 and C8, which are, coincidentally, also Cordelia's and come around when Cordelia shows up. Not really sure about the other parents. Staff users like Lissa, Maribelle, Libra or Anna are usually good choices to bring. Aside from Rescue bombing offering a lot of anti-Counter safety, being primarily staff users also puts them in a different EXP pool that keeps them from depriving your combat pairs of kills. Most kids come too late to be really helpful (with Lucina, Morgan and Laurent being notable exceptions).

[Irysa]

Kjelle is pretty good as well for nogrind.

[Bandit]

Ah I see, if memory serves Morgan's recruitment isn't the worst thing ever. Plus the reward is extremly useful (+5hp, +2 to other stats could be extremly useful to mostly nyone). I'd guess it's still worth doing their paralouges in most cases for the EXP that you get. I'll make sure I pick up Kjelle and Laurent, would they be good support partners for Morgan and Lucina? A physical based Morgan with a Vaike!Kjelle sounds like it could be pretty useful (plus Vaike would then pass down Galefroce since Fighter changes to Peg Knight), my only worry would be a Lucina and Laurent, whilst they have their highest growing support together Magic and Strength seem like they'd clash... unless I had Lucina as a Grandmaster? Then the magic buff from Laurent could be used. Though at the same time it could be underwhelming. I should probably do a test to see what modifers (think that's the correct term) Laurent gives to Lucina and vice versa.

Spotpass units seem like they'd be a waste to use since they come far too late and with no grinding it'd be impossible to get them up properly, right?

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

That setup would probably work, yeah. Even with one of a pair running Str and another, Mag, the offense should be good enough to take down most mooks. It might make a difference on some bosses or in the earliest training, but I find it's not too bad, since I usually end up running a magic Robin with Chrom support. Also, note that Laurent's common Lunatic+ use is as a Nostank, so he likes to be in the lead (incidentally, Lucina probably makes a better support, even though she'll usually have stats that make using her as a lead viable).

The Spotpass units are good as filler and little more. They have a pretty distinct lack of meaningful supports, but they typically come with rather significant stats. Gangrel and Emm make great drop-in staff users (always helpful for more Rescue) and Walhart, Yen'fay and Aversa can chip or meat shield a hit. Priam is the only one who is kind of pointless, since his is the last paralogue in that sequence.

[Bandit]

Yeah I've heard Nostanking is a great thing to use in Lunatic and Lunatic+, I don't use Dark Mages often since I prefer the utility of Sage (You can never have too many staffs) for most characters but I'll try that out for sure!

Though I do worry about Vaike's skill being a problem, he does seem to struggle with hitting things from what I remember. Are there better dads for Kjelle?

Also with Gregor as Laurent's dad (since he'll go Dark Mage) is Sol worth passing down if he's already got Nostanking going on, or should I pass down Bow Breaker so it's hard for him to get overwhelemed and killed?

[EmanEmal]

So I kind of disappeared for like two months ( I've been very busy )

But I'm back and I just completed my lunatic+ run with

-no dlc

-no spot pass (including renown rewards)

-no dark mages

-no skirmishes

-killed Grima with Donnel

and using a full team of people on every map

It was a great run, I had lots of fun, am very happy, and now I will go too bed because it is late.

[Vapo]

>training donnel in lunatic+

How did you even?

I know how to easily recruit him in Lunatic+, but actually training him to be a combat-viable unit? I'm not calling hacks or anything, I'm just confused.

[EmanEmal]

>training donnel in lunatic+

How did you even?

I know how to easily recruit him in Lunatic+, but actually training him to be a combat-viable unit? I'm not calling hacks or anything, I'm just confused.

So the main thing about using Donnel is getting him off to a good start. I posted about it before but on the level where you recruit him there are a bunch of archers and you can trap them (so long as they don't have pass) and have donnel stab them to death. Each archer gets him a level because of how many times he has to hit them and it also gets him the weapon exp to reach d rank with spears which lets him equip a javelin which lets him snipe the boss (so long as the boss has his melee axe equipped)

Doing all that I got him to level 6 going into chapter 5. From there you just try to make sure to get him a level or two on each map and that involves just knowing what he is effective against (Which generally means things typically that don't kill him instantly so he can finish them off without risking missing and just getting murdered)

on chapter five he does well against the dark mages because they can't double him because there so slow and he does kind of ok against the mages and myrmidons on account of them being squishy and him having weapon advantage against the myrmidons and range advantage with his javelin. (the mages can easily kill him though) And at the end of the map when all the reinforcements stop spawning and the waves of wivren riders are all dead there are like 3 enemies just chilling by the event tile at the top of the map and you can easily set it up for him to kill at least like two of them.

on chapter six he has the same situation with dark mages but more importantly donnel needs to kill the thieves because he can do it safely with his javelin, reliably because weapon advantage, and they give 50 exp instead of 30. There are thieves everywhere on this map so it makes it a big donnel leveling map, it was defiantly very tricky to do though this map was crazy and defiantly gave me the most trouble out of the early game maps (probably because all of my normal plans for it were just ended by pass and then I had to feed the thieves to donnel on top of that) So this was the hardest part of leveling him. Also I give donnel the skill book I get here to help him hit things more reliably.

chapter seven has more thieves and archers which are good for donnel, he needs to kill as many thieves as possible same as on six and around now he should be like level 11-12ish and much less of a liability.

things continue in the same way and I try to get him level 15 by chapter 11 and I class change him with the second seal in the chest on the right.

Once that happens he becomes very strong and then you don't really have to worry about him. I made him a mercenary into a bow knight so that he would get arms thrift and bows to deal with counter. With all that he can just kind of walk around maps and kill most things on his own in one turn. You don't really need to invest much more into him because he'll just naturally get kills and max his stats before level 20 bow knight and just be solid and useful for the rest of the game.

I paired him up with nowi because when nah has aptitude you can just feed her her the vast majority of her map the moment you get access to it and she can instantly become the most powerful unit on the team.

I honestly think he is a totally viable and strong. he can solo kill enemies from the moment he cages class to the moment he kills grima (so long as they don't spawn with the agies+ , counter combo) He doesn't need a pair up. he is efficient with weapons and levels. He has a bow, a sword, high health, and high defense, so in basically every situation he is useful. His kid is beyond amazing, which is something I think a lot of people kind of ignore because the future kids are already good but donnel's kid is flat out amazing.

So yes Donnel rocks, use Donnel.

Also

Though I do worry about Vaike's skill being a problem, he does seem to struggle with hitting things from what I remember. Are there better dads for Kjelle?

I did a really cool build with vaike where I made him a barbarian into a warrior so that he had zeal, gamble, and wrath. then I gave him all the goddess icons I got and funded a crit forged killer axe with his despoil money, got him the support crit bonus, and used solidarity from the tactician and he could crit at 100% on certain enemies when wrath was active. And then I had him one shot his way through counter and it was supper awesome. (and funny) It should also be easier to set up if you have dark mages because of there -10 avoid aura.

Leveling him was supper hard though (sometimes even worse than donnel) and I made sure to feed him all the skill books except the first and I honestly got very lucky with his speed growth. I found the desert sand in level 8 super useful in leveling him.

I'm not sure if I recommend him exactly but it defiantly worked out for me and if I tried to use vaike again I would do it the same way.

hope this helps.

[paulcdejean]

>training donnel in lunatic+

How did you even?

I know how to easily recruit him in Lunatic+, but actually training him to be a combat-viable unit? I'm not calling hacks or anything, I'm just confused.

This is speaking from guesswork rather than lunatic experience but...

If Donnel marries Nowi, then he will dual strike when paired with her 60-90 percent of the time. Nowi's strength is too low to one shot anything, and Nowi is a frontliner, so Donnel can get risk free experience in this manner.

Also Nah with Aptitude gets very big very quickly.

EDIT: Ignore this post and read EmanEmal's post.

Edited August 25, 2015 by paulcdejean

[ultmatelifeform]

Yeah I have disappeared for about a month too. Lots of online classes and other issues. Anyways Bandit, I have used Stahl for Kelje's father before but I don't like using Kelje in general. None the less It went reasonably adequate. Bowbreaker is not essential as few units use bows and being a long range attacker you still get nostank advantages. I like Sol because you will never really get low on HP with it.

EDIT: oops heh. I wrote this a few houers ago and frogot to hit post. EmenEmals post is better.

Edited August 25, 2015 by ultmatelifeform

[paulcdejean]

I've given up on lunatic before, but now it's time to go for a no grind run, with a manly avatar (+speed. -magic).

My rough plan is:

Somewhat practical pairings:

Donnel x Nowi

Sumia x Chrom (for easiest galeforce Lucina)

Less practical but I'll try:

Avatar x Tiki

So far so good?

[Bandit]

If it's no grind then Donnel will be a pain to train up, outside of his starting chapter he'll be too weak to tackle most enemies. And Sumia really benifits from having those kills in his chapter if you want early galeforce for Lucina. Getting her up to level 10 isn't that bad, you get the master seal in chapter 8 from the south west village which gives you the rest of that chapter as well as 5 main game chapter as well as any side stories you haven't done. If you get galeforce during chapter 13 (you can grind on the spawning enemies if need be) it still counts, and then Cynthia can also have it to start with so you can skip Dark Flier with her if you want.

Nowi likes to be a lead unit as well, as does Donnel so you have to sacrifice the effectivness of one of them. Avatar x Tiki seems like it could be a problem since you don't get her until chapter 18 (in a side story, can't remember when it ) which means at minumum it will take 4 chapters to get Morgan, assuming you only do main story chapters that leaves you at chapter 22, with only 4 chapters to use her in which is a waste with how great a unit she'll be. I've learnt that Sully, the pegs and Miriel are solid choices. If you still want to use a -Mag flaw then avoid Miriel obviously, which leaves Cordelia or Sully. (Nowi can also work but as I learnt she and the MMU fight for being lead). Kjelle from what I've heard can be amazing for no grind runs (I plan to use her myself for my upcoming one) and doesn' hurt as much from the magic flaw, if you plan to use Severa as a Peg Knight line then -Mag hurts a bit. Same with Morgan.

I've heard that Gregor!Laurent is great though so that's a pairing you could try?

A mag flaw gives these growth rate modifiers:

-10% Mag

-5% Spd

-5% Res

A speed asset gives:

+5% Skl

+10% Speed

+5% Lck

Overall modifiers:

-10% Mag

+5% Skl

+5% Speed

+5% Luck

-5% Res

That info might be out of date though, I used this link:

http://old.serenesforest.net/fe13/char_growth.html#myunit

To calculate growth.

Sorry if that wasn't much use, I'm still new at the Lunatic no grind thing myself. Best of luck to you though! I'd recomend reading the page before this since I got a lot of this advice from those people!

EDIT: Read the graph wrong, so I've fixed the modifiers. My sincerest apologies for the incorrect information provided.

Edited August 27, 2015 by Bandit

[eclipse]

Tiki's problem is her lackluster mods.

If you absolutely want to keep most of the mothers free, I'd go with Anna instead.

EDIT: You could make some cheese build with Lucky 7 (from Anna)/Armsthrift/maybe Miracle. Might as well take advantage of all that dodging! 'sides, base Anna gives out movement as support!

EDIT 2: For a stupid full build with (relatively) minimal reclassing, try Lucky 7 (from Anna)/Veteran (from Avatar)/Patience/Sol/Tantivity. It's dumb in the sense that 45 avoid probably won't be enough to save you late in the game, but it should make for some interesting dodgetanking before that. Once Morgan's snowballed enough, Veteran can be replaced with a breaker or something generic (like Movement +1).

Edited August 27, 2015 by eclipse

[Wayward Alchemist]

Donny!Kjelle>>>>>>>>>>>Donny!Anyone else. Seriously. Hero and Paladin are where it's at in terms of physical classes, and Donny!Kjelle has both, along with Aptitude, Galeforce, all breakers but Tome (which is the one she honestly wants), Sword and Lancefaire, PavGis, and great mods and growths.

Manaketes aren't really all that great for Lunatic, IMO. You really want to be able to double, which Manaketes have a hard time doing without considerable investment. If you are going MaMU, I'd suggest marrying one of the Pegs (Sumia for Magic based kiddos, Cordy for anything else) due to their Spd and easy Galeforce for your daughters, or Lucina for Aether Morgan who just kicks all kinds of ass. Sumi!Lucy is solid, but I prefer RK Inigo to Aether Cynthia, honestly.

[Zog58]

Ok so I'm playing a minimum grind Lunatic + run, and I just completed chapter 4, ending the initial hell of the early game. As it stands, my team is:

Avatar (+Spd,-Mag) Lvl1 Cavalier (gonna grab Luna and then be a Hero)

Chrom Lvl 7

Lissa Lvl 7

Freddy Lvl 5 (used a speedwing)

and Sumia Lvl 3 (used a seraph).

I plan to add Olivia, Cherche, and Henry to the team, as well as their respective kids when the time comes.

The rules of my playthrough are that I can play every DLC map only once, bar EXP Growth and GG, which I will not touch at all.

Any thoughts/ideas/suggestions?

[paulcdejean]

If it's no grind then Donnel will be a pain to train up, outside of his starting chapter he'll be too weak to tackle most enemies.

There was a post earlier where someone said they had a lot of success with Donnel. Apparently archer trapping is op.

What if I don't train Donnel, and just use him to father Nah?

EDIT: Oh then Nah's base stats will be too low, and I'll have too difficult of a time leveling her.

Edited August 28, 2015 by paulcdejean

[Bandit]

There was a post earlier where someone said they had a lot of success with Donnel. Apparently archer trapping is op.

What if I don't train Donnel, and just use him to father Nah?

EDIT: Oh then Nah's base stats will be too low, and I'll have too difficult of a time leveling her.

Which is why I suggesed reading the previous page, those people are a lot more knowledgeable about the subject than I am, just passing on what I've learnt.

Just in my opinion I'd say using those archers for Sumia training for early Galeforce would be overall more useful, but I could easily be wrong. Like you said, some people have had great success with him. I guess I'd personally rather not spend all that time babying him when I could use that for other units for some good children (though honestly I only really have Kjelle, Lucina, Laurent and Morgan planned for use so it's a pretty small group. I might try throwing Severa in there since I know Stahl!Severa is meant to be really good, though it does leave me one S-rank unit for marriage, Yarne could do that though. His sidestory gives an Energy Drop anyway which is pretty useful, and no reason to turn down free EXP!). Plus I personally feel I use Donnel too much in my Hard mode playthroughs, I'd rather ignore him for Lunatic personally.

Still I should've pointed out people had good runs with him on the previous page, sorry for not presenting a balanced argument for that part.

[paulcdejean]

Which is why I suggesed reading the previous page, those people are a lot more knowledgeable about the subject than I am, just passing on what I've learnt.

Just in my opinion I'd say using those archers for Sumia training for early Galeforce would be overall more useful, but I could easily be wrong. Like you said, some people have had great success with him. I guess I'd personally rather not spend all that time babying him when I could use that for other units for some good children (though honestly I only really have Kjelle, Lucina, Laurent and Morgan planned for use so it's a pretty small group. I might try throwing Severa in there since I know Stahl!Severa is meant to be really good, though it does leave me one S-rank unit for marriage, Yarne could do that though. His sidestory gives an Energy Drop anyway which is pretty useful, and no reason to turn down free EXP!). Plus I personally feel I use Donnel too much in my Hard mode playthroughs, I'd rather ignore him for Lunatic personally.

Still I should've pointed out people had good runs with him on the previous page, sorry for not presenting a balanced argument for that part.

I think I'll just put him behind Nowi and forget about him. Even if I train Donnel, Nah will inherit most of her defense from her mother. If her mother is feed sufficiently well, then Nah should be able to take off, maybe with a little help.

[paulcdejean]

So I beat chapter 3, which is infamous of course.

However I left behind the Vaikiest of Vaikes. RIP friend.

Vaike's no weakling, but I really didn't have any plans for him. Also the first merchant that popped had a second seal (!) and a rescue (!!!). Also I have a level 3 Sumia.

Return to the hell of chapter 3? Or move on?

Edited August 28, 2015 by paulcdejean

[eclipse]

Don't double post, first and foremost.

Second, if you had no plans on using Vaike as a father/Chrom's BFF, then there's no need to keep him around.

[paulcdejean]

Sorry about that, won't do it again.

And yeah no plans to use him as a father. I did Vaike x Nowi on my first ever playthrough, and that was probably the lamest romance ever.

I wonder how many more will fall on this quest. The idea of leaving someone behind seemed kind of absurd on normal/hard.